1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for masking a privacy area of an image and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for masking a privacy area of an image while maintaining the characteristics of the image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Presently, various methods for protecting privacy by masking features, such as a face and the like, that would otherwise reveal major personal information in images, have been developed. Among them, a method for manually designating a particular area and masking the designated area, a method for masking or encrypting an area of an object by using an existing object detection method, and the like, are largely used.
However, while these existing methods are available for uni-directional encryption, the decryption of an encrypted area is either not available or additional metadata must be maintained in order to decrypt the encrypted area.
Thus, the development of a technique for easily and effectively re-detecting an important area of an image such as a detected face, number plate, window, or the like, after the area has been encrypted and scrambled, and decoding the re-detected area, is required.